The U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Dakota will re-examine a list of nearly 40 deaths that Oglala Sioux tribal officials say were insufficiently prosecuted or investigated, U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson said.

Johnson’s statements came after Oglala Sioux Vice President Tom Poor Bear and council judiciary committee chairman James Toby Big Boy sent a list of 39 specific deaths on or near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The two men believe the cases should be reopened or reinvestigated. They had earlier sent a letter to Johnson but had not included the list of names.

“We’ve got the list now. I’m grateful to have the list,” Johnson told the AP. “We’ll go through those cases. If there are cases we can prosecute, we certainly will. Even if the case is 30 years old, if we get the information necessary, we will prosecute.”

However, Johnson said it would be challenging to gain enough new information to prosecute cases that are several decades old.

In response to a similar tribal request, the FBI issued a report in 2000 detailing its investigations into the deaths of 57 people during a violent period of the 1970s, when the reservation’s murder rate was the highest in the nation and tensions peaked between the American Indian Movement and the FBI. AIM activists and their supporters took over the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation for 71 days to protest the treatment of American Indians.

The FBI in its 2000 report determined it was right to close the cases, even when deaths were deemed unnatural and no one was prosecuted.

The report didn’t satisfy some tribal members, who believe many of the FBI investigations were inadequate. The newly compiled list includes names and outcomes from the 2000 report that tribal leaders say are questionable.

“When you take a close look at it, some of the conclusions are quite preposterous in my point of view,” said Lisa Shellenberger, a Colorado-based attorney working with the Oglala Sioux.

In addition to names from the 1970s, the list includes three names from the 1990s, including Poor Bear’s brother, Wilson Black Elk, and cousin, Ron Hard Heart. Their bodies were found in 1999 on reservation land, just across the border from Whiteclay, Neb.

“My lack of trust in the FBI, I would like to see a special team of investigators other than the FBI come down and investigate these deaths,” Poor Bear told the AP last week.

FBI special agent Greg Boosalis said the agency is still looking into the deaths of Black Elk and Hard Heart. He said he could not comment on an outside agency conducting investigations.

While many of the cases have been closed by the FBI, Boosalis said any new information that comes forward could change that.

“Obviously, if we have new information any of the closed files would be reopened,” he said.

The 39 deaths are those the tribe deems most questionable.

Last month, Johnson said in an interview with the AP that he and other federal officials are dedicated to prosecuting cases with enough information – even decades later.

“Whenever we have a case that we believe we can pursue and prosecute, we’re going to do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s 20 years,

30 years old, we’re going to do that,” Johnson said last month. He cited the prosecution of John Graham and Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud in the 1975 killing of American Indian Movement activist Annie Mae Aquash as a sign that federal officials are dedicated to prosecuting cold cases when enough evidence is uncovered.

Looking Cloud was federally convicted in 2004 of first-degree murder in Aquash’s shooting death. Graham was convicted in state court in 2010.

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List of deaths deemed suspicious by Oglala Sioux

Following is a list of people whose deaths are considered suspicious by Oglala Sioux tribal officials. The tribe asked federal authorities on May 24 to reopen investigations into the cases. The names, dates of deaths and locations listed below were provided to the AP by a lawyer working with the tribe. Names marked with an asterisk indicate that someone was charged in connection with the case, but tribal officials believe the suspect was “inadequately charged” or received “insufficient sentences,” according to the documents.

2 Responses to Murders leading back to AIM….many people believe so!

But, no one in law enforcement in South Dakota is willing to pursue the puppet master behind AIM & their murderous rampage in Lakota territory…
Read Rezinate’s WordPress blog to see the Arlo Looking Cloud trial documents & why AIM remains free.